Although William McFeely says Douglass “placed the blame squarely on slavery” for the fact that he wasn’t close to his mother (6), the historian also cites a reason for Douglass to resent her. McFeely writes, “To be sure, even frequent visits would have been a poor substitute for the constancy of a daily life together, but Harriet did not make them at all” (7).
Douglass lived on the plantation of a man named Edward Lloyd, a successful farmer and planter who served as both governor of Maryland and a senator. In his biography of Douglass, William McFeely writes “Douglass never explicitly said whom he most suspected to have been his father, but late in life he was still intrigued by the story of a slave son of Edward Lloyd’s who was bitterly resented by a half brother whom he clearly resembled.” McFeely also noted that during moments of passion in the midst of a speech, Douglass had been known to allege that Lloyd was his father. (13-14) This prospect corresponds with Douglass’s comment about “the double relation of master and father.”